Detours on path to police substation on 6th Street

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, June 30, 2011

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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The black marbled storefront on right --72 Sixth St.-- in San Francisco, Calif., on Tuesday, June 7, 2011 might become a police substation. Crime maps refer to the nearby intersection--Sixth at Mission streets--as one of the most crime ridden locations in the city. less

The black marbled storefront on right --72 Sixth St.-- in San Francisco, Calif., on Tuesday, June 7, 2011 might become a police substation. Crime maps refer to the nearby intersection--Sixth at Mission ... more

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

Detours on path to police substation on 6th Street

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For a while, there was a perplexing question on Sixth Street - if you build it, will they come?

A proposal to build a police substation on the troubled corridor became a political hot potato, although Mayor Ed Lee, local merchants and Police Chief Greg Suhr all liked the idea. But everyone seemed to have a different vision of what the substation should be.

"It's all been talk, talk, talk," said Henry Karnilowicz, president of the South of Market Business Association. "Originally, it was going to be a place where the police had lockers, computers, showers and a place to change clothes. Then the cops began to back off. It was never very clear."

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Finally, it seems that there is an agreement to build and staff the substation. That doesn't mean it's been an easy process.

There were several issues at play. First, police brass is legitimately concerned about staff shortages. The highest ranks feel that promising cops at a specific address could leave them even more shorthanded.

"What a substation is, and has always been, is a storefront," Suhr said. "Talking about showers, lockers and computers - that's a station. And we have 10 of them. We don't want to move bodies from the Southern Station (4 blocks away) to a whole new station."

Some critics believe the Police Department has been acting difficult because officials there don't want civilians telling them where to put their officers. Remember how adamantly they opposed Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi's foot patrol ballot initiative.

But this is different. It's not a mystery whether Sixth Street is a crime hot spot. Crime stats consistently show that Sixth and Mission is one of the city's most dangerous intersections. Add in Sixth and Market and Sixth and Howard, you've got a 2-block-long crime epicenter.

That's not good for the city's push to lure businesses to the Mid-Market corridor. That's why the mayor touted the substation when he announced that Internet giant Twitter was moving its headquarters to the area.

"I am as tired as anybody of the problems on Sixth," Lee said this week. "We just need to get this done."

The city's Redevelopment Agency has made Sixth Street a special project, providing financial incentives to businesses willing to locate there. The agency is not only encouraging the substation, it will build it.

"That's the killer," Karnilowicz said. "Redevelopment is paying for this."

Estimates are the building will cost between $400,000 and $600,000, with computer stations, a meeting room, restrooms and showers, and bulletproof glass. It should be ready in nine months.

So why not assign some officers there? It's essentially free and it is only a few blocks from both the Southern and Tenderloin stations. If there's a major incident, it is likely to be on Sixth anyhow. There was a shooting just two weeks ago in which an innocent man walking down Sixth Street early in the morning was hit in the head by a random gunshot.

"My office and the mayor's office got a flood of e-mail after that," said Supervisor Jane Kim, whose district includes Sixth Street.

In the past few days, there has been a series of meetings and agreements have been hammered out. Originally the police didn't want to sign a rental agreement. Now Suhr said they've agreed to a three-year lease with a two-year option.

Suhr said the officers will be able to use the substation to write reports so they don't have to go all the way back to Southern Station inside the Hall of Justice. But police have declined an offer to install lockers. Once the lockers go in, apparently, it becomes too much like an actual station.

Personally, I don't get the difference. Neither do those who have been pushing to get this done.

"More than anything, we just want to see a dedicated police presence on the street," Kim said.

Everyone says that's what is going to happen. If it does, the details about whether there are lockers inside the substation will be an afterthought.

But if the police presence doesn't follow, you haven't heard the last of this.

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